Smaller KQED Layoffs "Imminent"

(MoneyWatch) 

Updating our report of four days ago, another media outlet, Current TV, is confirming our initial report about the pending layoffs at KQED this morning, with one important clarification, as noted below:

Downsizing plan in the works at KQED

A spokesman for San Francisco's KQED-TV/FM confirmed the gist of a Jan. 10 blog report about imminent lay-offs at the station but denied that they would be the largest in station history, as reported by BNET media analyst and former KQED exec David Weir...
To me, this represents a ray of good news, if the cuts are not as widespread as sources indicated they would be over last weekend.

Meanwhile, I've been hearing a good deal of chatter from people inside and close to the NPR/PBS operation for months about senior management's decisions in recent years to radically expand its radio and TV footprint by acquiring other struggling public broadcasters in Northern California.

There are those who say the imminent wave of job cuts would not have been necessary but for the costs incurred by this rapid expansion via acquisitions. But, when you consider conventional business wisdom, expanding the station's reach probably makes a lot of sense.

Theoretically, with a larger audience and fewer competitors, KQED should be able to grow its member base, book more underwriting revenue, and exert more control over an integrated media market extending from the mid-coastal region to Sacramento and beyond.

That's the theory. But reality's devil is in the details. It's been explained to me by several knowledgeable sources that the far-flung acquisitions have not yet been able to be efficiently absorbed into the San Francisco-based operation. One problem has been a small but vocal backlash from some of the communities where the local popular public broadcasting outfits had built their own brand loyalties.

I've encountered this when talking to listeners in the Sacramento area, who have denounced KQED in surprisingly angry terms as having "big-footed" their local stations. It's surprising because these deals were consummated long enough ago that I would have thought some of those ruffled feathers would have been smoothed, as the capitol area's listeners and viewers get a stronger programming lineup via KQED.

But also, having once been inside the company, as part of the senior team, I know how beleaguered those executives can be made to feel. If the left doesn't hate you, wait 'til the right gets here. Sort of like those Bob Dylan lines:

Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
And some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all of the people can't be all right all of the time.

If you're an exec for KQED, there's no way you can make more than some of the people feel okay some of the time. That's the catch with a membership system as one lynchpin in your business model.

Everybody figures they've got a piece of you...